Hello All,
The day began with 2 sessions, one was USA and it's Foreign Policy (pretty good) and Web and Politics (horrible). We moved on at 11:00 to the University of Maryland for a session with Al Gore. The session was really good. Al Gore primarily spoke about USA's 3 problems - The current economic crisis, 2 wars abroad and Global Warming. He proceeded to explain on how investment in renewable energy will solve all 3 problems. For example, renewable energy will reduce USA's dependence on oil in the middle-east reducing it's involvement there, also the job creation will boost the economy and help combat global warming (of course I have given you the 1 sentence summary of his brilliant 1 hr session). He also spoke about the Smart Power Grid system he has proposed for the USA to reduce energy loss from point of generation to point of consumption.
When coming back from the University of Maryland, traffic was horrible...people have started trickling in for the Inauguration Ceremony. Roads into Washington are shut for tomorrow.
I had signed for Metro SMS alerts (so I know for tomorrow the status of the Metro Lines). Already receiving such messages:
"The Secret Service has closed the Judiciary Square F St entrance for the remainder of the night."
"The Independence Avenue entrance of Smithsonian station is exit only until further notice due to crowded stations." And we aren't even at D-Day!
Now the exciting part...
On my floor in the hotel, the layout, it's like a +, so 4 aisles of rooms with the elevator in the center. Today, one aisle has been completely blocked off and is guarded by 3 agents (don't know which agency but I heard people say they were Secret Service). They are exactly like in the movies, black suit, all dressed with that microphone spring thingy behind their ears. Oh and somebody in that row ordered Room Service for breakfast and they were inspecting the food and all. The funny part being there are no suites on my floor so no idea who is staying there. Oh and also Federal Agents did a 'sweep' of our hotel today. They were dressed in a cream / greenish uniform with Federal Agents printed at the back and heavily armed. The reason for the sweeps being that there are hotels here where President Elect Barrack Obama has been invited to attend the Inaugural Ball (my hotel being one of them).
Oh and all through the day (later half once I was back) we had VIP convoys pass by all day. You can differentiate cause the VIP convoys have these really weird siren noises...tried to search for a YouTube video to highlight the same but couldn't find one. So yeah, really weird noise and usually you have 2 normal cop cars, followed by a limousine (or some other big shot car) and then those black vans with sirens...again...just like the movies! And man...you should see the way these cars make turns on high speed!
There have been various convoys passing by all day with different convoy sizes...the biggest I saw from my hotel window was something like 20 units which had 2 limousines and also an ambulance at the end and before the ambulance some fancy looking van. There are a lot of hotels in my area as my hotel falls just within the outermost security ring for Capitol Hill and therefore lot of activity. We also have helicopters hovering above now and then and next to important buildings further down, you have Humvees / Jeeps with Army personnel. Also, huge barricades have been deployed. As the streets get filled with crowds tomorrow starting from Capitol Hill, those streets shall be cut off by dragging these barricades to prevent a further influx of people. Oh and when you go further down, as in really close to National Mall, you will see soldiers (I am assuming they will be snipers tomorrow) on top of buildings.
We are planning to head down early to National Mall to experience the moment. Looking at the crowds don't know how far we will get. Then after 'experiencing' the moment, I will head down to 1100 New York Avenue. Why there? Will break the suspense tomorrow :) I just hope I can navigate myself around later on. Our conference supervisors will be there at strategic locations beginning at 3:00am to guide us here and there, but with an official estimate of 2,000,000 people (and now some channels are saying 4,000,000 but I think that's hugely exaggerated), they said we best be prepared to be on our own.
Signing off...
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